Wednesday, November 29, 2017

A Living Faith - Treasures from Troubles

Preached on Sunday, November 26, 2017

Scripture readings: Matthew 6:19-24; James 1:2-12.

Walking along Priest Rapids Lake, Columbia River
Desert Aire/Mattawa, WA
November, 2017
I remember one of those summers during my college career. It was the summer of ’73. Summer was just beginning, and I had a farm job starting soon.
I had to get ready. I was rummaging around the garage looking for my farm gear. I found my work gloves, and I found my hat, and I found my lunch box and my water jug. (Those are really important.) And I found my work boots.
Now, my body was still growing in those days; taller not yet wider. And I guess my feet were growing too. Those boots fit me just fine the summer before; but now they were a little bit tight. They were just a half-size too small.
I told myself that they would be all right. And the reason I was working was to save my money, not to spend it (even before I made it) on new boots.
But I learned fast that it just isn’t worth it; to wear boots that don’t fit. It was horrible, and I bought those new boots just as soon as I could. I was amazed then, as I always am, that such a seemingly little thing can make you so miserable. I didn’t realize how important my feet were.
I’ve learned to be always amazed at another thing too…what I a big baby I am about a little bit of pain, a little bit of inconvenience, a little bit of frustration.
I get mad: mad at the car, mad at the computer, mad at the plumbing, mad at my own brain when I have to go into the house two or three times before I get in my car, because my brain won’t remember what I tell it to.
I get whiny. I want to inflict feelings of pity, and guilt, and misery on others; over the slightest things.
Then I get mad at myself: not just at my brain but at my heart. And I say, “Dennis! What’s the matter with you! You’re a Christian! Where is your sense of perspective?”
Most of the things that make me mad or miserable are nothing, or next to nothing. How on earth is that work boot going to ruin my life? What does it matter if it takes a little patience, and time to get into that darn car?
Maybe, sometimes, the thing that makes me mad or miserable isn’t so small, after all. I have had some big troubles, and some huge failures. Still, other people have had worse than I have.
And what about Jesus? He was rejected, and whipped, and beaten, and spat upon, for me, and for you, and for the whole world. Jesus carried a cross, and died on it, for the whole world, and for me, and for you.
Knowing what he’s done; how could I ever be mad? How could I ever be miserable? The truth is that I have more blessings to count than I have troubles: many, many more blessings than troubles.
Actually, the Bible lets us get mad. Paul says: “Be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” (Ephesians 4:26) By which he basically means: “OK, if you are going to be mad, don’t let it make you crazy or stupid. Let go of it fast. Don’t hold onto it.”
But then, James says: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet with trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2) “Count it all joy.”
Well, that’s what I try to do.
Then I discover another very interesting thing about myself in the light of God’s word. I find that I am what James calls, “a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
At least, that is what I think I am. And if that is what I am, then I am in real trouble, and maybe you are too.
But, I think we make ourselves hopeless only when we misunderstand what James is talking about, in the first place. Because, sometimes we read James as if he were saying, “God will not answer any prayer of a person who is conflicted (double-minded) about anything.”
But that’s not what James is saying. He’s saying that what the double-minded person won’t get from God is the wisdom they need in order to see their way through their trials and troubles.
This is not because double-mindedness makes God mad. The problem is that double-mindedness makes us blind; well, it makes us see double. No good parent wants that for their child.
We make ourselves spiritually cross-eyed. God hates it when we do that to ourselves, and he will not cooperate with us to let us go on doing that.
We will not see God’s wisdom about our life and our situation. We will not see God’s wisdom about our trials and our troubles, only because we are spiritual cross-eyed. When we can’t see beyond our anger and misery, when we can’t manage to settle down in a single-minded faith, then we’re in danger of being spiritually blind or deaf: blind and deaf to God.
Sometimes the Christian life has been called “peace with God” Now this peace with God comes from God, alone. Peace with God comes from the infinite and faithful love of God that is revealed in Jesus, on the cross and in the resurrection. Jesus is God in the Flesh; God come down to our level, as a true human: a tremendous mystery.
Somehow, on the cross, God himself bought us, owned us, and carried us. God carried, on the cross, all our sins: all that divides us from him, and from others, and from ourselves; all that lashes out against him, all that hurts ourselves and others.
On the cross, God himself carried all our human nature, everything that we call bad and everything that we call good. He carried us completely so that we could become completely a new creation.
On the cross, God, himself, carried all of our potential. God carried our potential for future everlasting joy, and peace, and fulfillment. In Jesus, God carried all of our potential to live life with him now.
But on the cross the Lord also gave up everything else for us. The Lord even lost himself, and he cried, “My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
Our peace comes from God who, on the cross, had nothing left but us, and us alone. God carried us on his shoulders. God carried us, bleeding through his wounds.
Our peace comes from having nothing but God on the cross, nothing else and nothing less. Our peace comes from one single source. Our peace comes from one single place: God, alone.
Otherwise we become what Jesus said that his disciples could not be. We become souls with two masters. (Matthew 6:24)
We have two masters whenever our peace comes from more than one place. Is our peace double-minded? What if we were like Job, in the Old Testament, who lost everything that gave him peace, except God?
When we read about Job, we can find that he was double-minded for a while. He wanted his day in court with God, to demand answers. “Why are you doing this God? Why is this happening to me?” 
And the mystery is that God didn’t do anything to Job, and yet God had a reason for it all happening, and once Job could make a single-minded contact with God (or when God finally got through to Job), then Job was satisfied. Job was satisfied without ever having received any answer to his questions: because God only answered Job’s questions with more questions.
The only answer that Job received was God himself. He was satisfied by simple seeing God as God is in himself. Job said, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5) It was enough to have God.
Job didn’t need an answer anymore. If he had, he would have returned to the state of mind of being a man whose peace was double-minded; a peace that came from receiving answers that met with his own personal approval, not from having God alone.
God wants us to have his peace, which came when he carried the cross for us. Our peace comes from the place where God had nothing at all but us alone. God wants us to be his children, who have a life that comes from him alone.
But what if our life, or our meaning in life, or our peace, comes from our work? What if it comes from our physical strength, and ability, and good health? What if it comes from our brain-power? What if it comes from our senses: our sight and hearing? What if it comes from our money or our toys? What will happen to us then?
When being a child of God means having your life come from God, alone, and not from all these other sources, God may have to claim us by cutting off all those other sources. Do we dare to hope otherwise?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the German theologian who was imprisoned and executed for his involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler) once preached these words. He said: “There are many Christians who do indeed kneel before the cross of Jesus Christ, and yet reject and struggle against every tribulation in their own lives. They believe they love the cross of Christ, and yet they hate that cross in their own lives. And, so, in truth, they hate the cross of Jesus Christ as well, and in truth despise that cross and try, by any means possible, to escape it.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Treasures of Suffering”, in Meditations on the Cross, p. 41)
When we get mad and miserable, and we have every good reason to do so, we still need to ask, “OK, Lord, please give me wisdom about just this one thing. Where does this anger tell me that my heart is? Where does this misery tell me that my treasure is?”
This is what it means to pray, “God, I don’t want to be double-minded anymore. Until now, I have wanted things both ways. Now I am ready for your way.” 

Now, that is the prayer of faith that God will always answer.

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